


Astronautical: Tenebris

by OfMonstersAndMe



Series: Astronautical [7]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies), X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men Evolution
Genre: Astronautical, Avengers - Freeform, Black Order - Freeform, Black Panther - Freeform, Canon-Typical Violence, Chitauri - Freeform, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Infinity War, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post Apocalyptic Earth, X-men - Freeform, mentions of torture, winter soldier - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-01
Updated: 2019-02-15
Packaged: 2019-07-21 01:15:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16149467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OfMonstersAndMe/pseuds/OfMonstersAndMe
Summary: Things went wrong during the battle of New York. The Chitauri and Loki did not come alone. The Avengers claiming the staff and Tesseract is the last thing Tony remembers before he is captured. A year later he escapes his incarceration to discover the Earth is left in shambles as the damage from the failed nuke spreads and Thanos's army marches in search of the Stones of Power.Companion Piece to Astronautical and Luciferous, but can be read first.





	1. Icarus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _Tenebris is a part of my Astronautical Series, but can be read first._ Although this is often referred to by me as Book 3, it runs parallel to the two GotG books, and can be read first. I'm hoping to design it like the movies, in that Tenebris and Astronautical  & Luciferous will each follow their own story line which will meet up in a direct sequel to both. Like how GotG and Iron Man, for example, are both independent but linked movies which eventually combine into IW. If you are new to this series, I suggest reading Astronautical and Luciferous as well, as it will have a lot of answers, but I know some people may love one set of characters more than others or just may not be interested in the other storyline right now, so I'm planning to have each one work relatively independently and have 'recaps/summaries' before the books meet up. I really suggest trying both, though!
> 
> For those who are already reading Astronautical; **THIS BOOK TAKES PLACE A YEAR AND A HALF BEFORE THE EVENTS OF ASTRONAUTICAL & LUCIFEROUS!**
> 
> It will cover more time and catch up, however.
> 
>  
> 
> _Characters and Avengers belong to Marvel, I am writing this for entertainment purposes only!_

****Tenebris** **

.

** **.:Prologue:.** **

_"I can close it." Natasha's voice rang across the coms, distorted by the power of the staff in her hands pulsing against the core of the device holding the portal open. "Can anybody copy? I can shut the portal down."_

_"Do it!" Steve shouted over the interference._

_"No, wait!" Tony cut in, pushing the thrusters of his suit just a little harder._

_"Stark! These things are still coming!" Steve's voice was tight and clipped._

_"I have a nuke coming in." Stark struggled to keep his voice calm in contrast. "It's gonna blow in less than a minute."_

_The visuals in his suit finally located the incoming bomb. He was too low. The nuke was passing overtop the bridge he was darting under. Stark slammed on the breaks, his thrusters beating against the ocean and sending up waves of steam as he struggled to enough of a halt to turn around and give chase. "And I know just where to put it."_

_He caught up to the nuke, sidling up underneath it and searching for a finger hold._

_"Stark." Steve's voice was quieter now. "You know that's a one way trip?"_

_"Save the rest for return, J." he breathed._

_{Sir} A mechanical voice chimed in. {Shall I try Miss Potts?}_

_The portrait of a smiling redhead winked to life in the corner of his eye._

_Tony knew this picture by heart, every last line and pixel, but still he couldn't resist a glance as he guided the volatile nuke through the harbor and tried to find a solid grip._

_"Might as well."_

_Stark and the missile broke out from over the water together and into the city. He used his body to steer them towards a straight alley through the buildings ahead. Stark tower rose above all the rest, the stream holding the portal open was glowing like a beacon. Or maybe, for him, more like a bug-light. And he was the bug that was going to fly right into it._

_Pepper still hadn't answered her phone as the tower grew close and Tony steered the missile up, flying up the length of the tower at what may have been a record speed for him. She hadn't answered as he shot past the top of the tower where Natasha and that scientist were guarding the Tesseract from Loki and these new enemies spilling in through the portal like cockroaches. It had still been ringing when he shot through the portal and the connection was lost. A hollow sense of loss and might-of-been's flooded his chest as he realized that he would never get to say a final 'I love you' or 'goodbye.' He didn't know which one made him sadder. He hadn't even have the time to leave her a stupid voicemail._

_The mother ship loomed in the space above the portal and Stark was using the last of his flickering power to point the nose of the nuke towards its belly when something knocked against him. Whatever it was, it hit hard. The nuke was ripped from his hands and spun violently in one direction while Tony was flung in the other, desperately trying to make sense of what was happening._

_"Jarvis?" He called out. "Talk to me, what's going on?"_

_{….ppears...o be... body si...} Came the halting answer through the static and power surges of his failing suit._

_"Body?" Stark gasped in disbelief, but as he pried at the weight around him, he recognized the feeling of arms wrapped around his waist. The spinning stars began to slow and Tony realized the body was aiming for the portal, dragging him back through._

_An alarm raised in the corner of his screen. Stark managed to twist his head enough to make out a small spacecraft following after. It had scooped up the Nuke in some sort of tractor beam and was following after them._

_"GUYS!" Stark screamed as he and the mysterious body re-entered the portal and their momentum gave way to gravity. "CLOSE THE PORTAL!" His systems were flickering and dying so quickly he could do nothing but beg them to work. Just a little more life. Just one more message. "CLOSE IT! CAN ANYONE HERE ME! GUYS!"_

_Nothing was happening, the portal wasn't closing. He could see the distorted image of the craft closing in._

_Someone was screaming through the coms, shouting commands or asking for clarification, he couldn't tell. The audio was so warped and garbled, he couldn't even tell who it was._

_"Nonononono! Come on!" Stark howled as the image of the ship began to resolve. He couldn't let that bomb come back, he couldn't let it go off on this side of the portal. He ripped one arm free, the suit's commands were sluggish and halting as he raised his palm to manually aim a shot and fired at the flickering form of the incoming ship._

_The shot must have hit, because the last thing Stark saw was the ship ripping apart inside of the portal, and a bright shock wave coming straight for him._

****.** **

** **Chapter 1: Icarus** **

His name was Tony Stark. That was the first thing. The most important thing. That was the core of his being and existence. As long as he remembered that, he could build the rest of the world around it.

Spaceships had day cycles, but they did not have seasons. That was the second thing. Because of this, Tony Stark did not know how long he had spent incarcerated in the darkness. It felt like years. Yesterday, at least he was pretty sure it was yesterday, he had caught sight of his reflection in a puddle and swore he looked at least a decade older than he had been the last time he had seen his own face. It may very well have been decades, for all the time he had lost. Entire chunks of time were missing in his memories. White hairs dusted his head, but he had no way of knowing if they were from age or stress, and the deep ache and creaking in his bones may have been from his stints spent unmoving on tables or racks, hindered sometimes by straps and other times by agony and his body's own refusal to listen to his commands through its exhaustion.

Aliens spoke English. That was the third thing, and something that never ceased bothering him, rubbing against the back of his head like velvet brushing the wrong way. They shouldn't speak English. It made no sense. Not even all humans spoke English, yet the creatures that held him here had no problem making their intentions known, something that made playing dumb in their interrogations much more difficult. It also made him all too aware of the increasingly disturbing things they would suggest doing to him.

The sound of footsteps and a shadow interrupting the sliver of light under his cell door derailed his attempts to gather his thoughts.

Tony held his breath, as though if he were quiet enough, they would forget he was here and move on to torment some other poor unlucky bastard. The click and trill of his door unlocking was the universe's only response to that.

"Hello Stark." A sharp, gravely, voice heralded the entrance of Tony's least favorite visitor even as he shut his eyes against the flood of burning light from the open door. "Are you feeling a bit more co-operative today?"

"G'morning Corvis," Tony replied, disheartened by the way his voice trembled like a dry straw hut facing down a hurricane. "I'd offer you some scotch, or a place to sit, but the service here is just terrible. I'm still waiting on that pillow, by the way." As Tony blinked his eyes and struggled to adjust to the light after so long in the darkness, he thought he saw the edges of Corvis's lip twist up into a smile.

"I'll take that as a no," the alien said. "Good, I was hoping this wouldn't be too easy." He waved his arm and a pair of Chitauri entered to haul Tony up by the scruff of his shirt. As awkward and uncomfortable as the manhandling was, he knew without it he would never even make it to his feet, so he remained sullenly silent as they half-dragged, half-carried, him out of his cell and followed after Corvis Glaive down the hallway.

"It must be a special occasion," Tony managed to squeeze out as he struggled to keep his feet under him. He rarely left the dark room nowadays. "Let me guess, is it Christmas? It kind of feels like Christmas."

"You have a new visitor," Corvis answered over his shoulder. "One of my sisters is here to meet you."

"Do you mean your girlfriend? With the- ...the horn things? We've already met."

"No, not her. And Proxima Midnight is my wife."

"That makes it worse." Tony missed a step and staggered against the guard to his left. "I don't know how you guys do things in space, but I think it's a pretty universal rule that you don't marry your sister..."

Corvis Glaive's beady orange eyes, too small for his face and set too far apart, regarded Tony for a moment. "It's strange hearing a Terran speak of the universe," he grinned. "Like a piece of filth fell off my shoe and suddenly began reciting poetry."

Tony tugged his lips into a frown, but his reply was morphed into a pained grunt when the group came to a sudden halt. In front of him, Corvis twisted his head like a dog that had caught a strange noise in the distance.

"Ah, she's already here." The tips of his pointed teeth showed in his broad smile. "We'll meet her in room 314."

Tony's stomach dropped at the mention of the all to familiar room, and the bruising grip of the hands around his upper arms was the only thing that kept him from the embarrassment of sinking to his knees then and there.

-x-

Room 314 was up a steep flight of wire stairs and down enough hallways to make Tony's head swim. He'd counted them once. His brain kept churning out the number sixteen, but he couldn't be sure if that was the correct number. Things got very fuzzy in that room. By the time they made it to their destination, Tony had all but abandoned any pretense of walking on his own. The toes of his boots scuffed and scraped against the metal flooring as even his token efforts to land on his feet faded.

"Here we are," Corvis crowed as he shoved the heavy metal door open. "Your 'home away from home,' as you called it once."

Had he called it that? Tony couldn't remember, but it sounded like something he'd say.

His 'home away from home,' as he had apparently named it, came with a bed. A 'bed' was a generous way to put it, but it sounded better to Tony's rapidly panicking brain than the words 'dissection table' which always came to him when he laid eyes on the hunk of cold metal in the middle of the room with restraints built into it. The table could be tilted. Past experience had taught him it could lay flat or sit upright, or be locked into any position in between. Today, it was just a few degrees short of upright, and the Chitauri guards had no trouble shoving his tired body against its slanted surface and locking him in place. The strap across his forehead dug uncomfortably into his temples.

"So tell me about this new sister of yours," Tony wheezed out when he had gathered enough breath and the silence had yawned on for far too long. "Is she hot?"

Corvis gave him no answer, busy watching the door they'd come through.

"It doesn't really matter. I'm kind of taken, myself." Pepper. Her name was Pepper. The name flickered in his mind like a dying vacancy sign over a condemned highway motel, and Tony clung to it through the darkness before it faded away again. "But I always prefer to be strapped down and tortured by pretty girls..." Tony glanced at the Chitauri guards. "No offense, guys."

Corvis's glittering eyes turned on him again. "It's such a pain that my father thinks we can get anything useful from you. I would have loved to have cut out your tongue a long time ago. Oh well, I'll just have to be content with removing your head when this is over."

"Don't take this the wrong way, but I'm not the biggest fan of your dreams."

The sound of footsteps coming down the hallway halted their conversation.

"Welcome, sister." Corvis spread his arms wide, his Glaive glinting as he waved it under the ship's dull lighting.

A tall hooded stranger stepped through the doorway, dressed in a startlingly white robe that fell to the floor and obscured everything but the bottom half of her face. All Tony could tell was that her skin was a vibrant blue, and a pair of black stripes like whiskers were drawn across each of her cheeks. Despite the strong resemblance to a cat, some primal voice in the back of Tony's head was screaming  _shark_.

"Since you don't seem to be very keen on sharing what we want to know willingly, we'll be doing things a little differently today," Corvis said, turning back towards Tony. "This is Supergiant, the greatest telepath in the known universe. If there's anything in your brain worth having, she'll drag it out."

The corners of Supergiant's mouth curved upward as she strode across the room, pausing so close to Tony he could feel the air she had disturbed in her approach. The long sleeves of her robe fell back as she raised her arms, revealing slender hands with black nails that had been filed into points. An unreasonable bolt of terror shot through Tony at the sight of those hands reaching towards his face.

"Wait!" he gasped. "Wait, hold o-"

A bright light flooded his vision, and filled his mind with blinding pain.

-x-

Tony's brain fizzled and sparked like a fried wire. It was as though, whoever this new stranger was, she had physically reached into his head and scrambled his brains. Consciousness came back in scraps and snatches. Voices around him faded into focus and then slurred back into unintelligible noises. The stain on the floor, a scratch on his boots, Pepper's face, images resolved from flickering static to float across his vision and dissolve again into formless blurs and blots of color.

"...-n't found it yet-..."

"It's been... -lous-...-how long-..."

"...-can't take any-..."

"Why can't we-..."

"...-too weak-...-he'll die."

"...-need him much longer-..."

"...-half-dead subjects-...-I can only-...-your own carelessness-..."

The conversation slowly pulled back into focus as the numbness in his body receded. Tony swiped his tongue over his lips and thought he tasted blood mixed in with the usual sweat and grime. His forehead stung where he must have been trashing against the restraint, and he could already feel the deep bruising setting in along his wrists and across his chest. When he found the strength, he pulled his eyes up from the floor to watch the two aliens arguing in front of him.

Corvis Glaive was looking decidedly cross. His too-wide lips were pulled into an ugly frown and his eyes glittered with unconcealed malice as they glared up at the telepath. The Shark-woman hardly seemed fazed by his foul mood. Her hands were once more folded into the sleeves of her pristine white robe, and the only part of her face he could see was as cold and emotionless as it had been when she'd entered.

"Fine!" Corvis snarled up at his 'sister,' obviously furious about things not going according to his plans, and Tony wished he were feeling well enough to enjoy this moment. "I have some business to attend to on Terra. He can have some time to..." His face wrinkled in disgust. " _Recover_  while I am away, but the moment he is strong enough to survive until you find what you're after we will continue."

The pair of Chitauri stepped forward and began removing the cuffs from his wrist.

"No," Corvis snapped at them, swiping at one with his blade in a fit of temper and forcing them to scatter back to avoid the weapon's sharp edge. "Leave him here. It'll just wear him out more to drag him to his hole and back."

With one final hateful look at Tony, who desperately wished he had the breath for a sarcastic quip right now, Corvis stalked from the room. The Chitauri marched after him, the clanking of their boots against the metal drowning out Corvis's stomps. The shark-woman lingered for a moment. He could feel her gaze on him even from under the hood, and her expressionless face was terrifying in a way that Corvis's worst moments of rage had never been. The corners of her lips twitched upward and Tony was suddenly irrationally certain he was about to die. His heart hammered and strained like it intended to abandon ship; burst from his chest and run away and leave the rest of him to his fate. Then the moment passed, and she turned away to vanish out the doorway as well, and Tony was left alone in his home away from home.

Despite his best efforts to stay awake and consider this newcomer with the power to put Corvis on edge, Tony quickly slipped back into unconsciousness. Even the terror of those last moments could do nothing as his body gave out against the exhaustion and his mind sunk back into the comforting darkness.

When he woke, he woke with no sense of how long he had been out. It could have been minutes, or hours. Everything ached, but his head felt a bit clearer and more capable of holding down a train of thought. No one had returned yet, and Tony was still alone, held upright by the straps anchoring him to the table. Tony shifted in an attempt to find a position that would be even marginally better, and was surprised when the cuff around his right wrist felt just a little looser than he remembered it ever being. He gave his wrist an experimental tug and his breath caught painfully in his throat when it wiggled even looser in response. The Chitauri that Corvis had swiped at must have failed to properly reset the strap he'd been working free before leaving.

Hope sparked and flared in his chest, unfamiliar and overwhelming after so long without it. With more tugging, Tony managed to work his hand free and set himself to peeling off the rest of his restraints as quickly as he could. The whole time he worked he listened intently for the sound of footsteps coming back down the hallway. Any moment someone could walk in and catch him before he was entirely free and this moment would be lost. How much time had he wasted sleeping? If he made it out, he would have plenty of time to kick himself later. If he didn't, he wouldn't have much time for anything at all.

Tony could hardly believe it when he worked the last strap free from around his ankle and still no one had come.

"Okay," he whispered to himself as he kneeled by the table, catching his breath, hating how much it had taken out of him to do that. "Okay, focus. First things first. I need a ride."

This ship had smaller shuttles. Tony had seen them with his own eyes. He'd passed them on several trips, and he was pretty sure he remembered going down a lot of stairs the last time he'd seen them. With a grunt, he heaved himself up enough to stumble to the wall, bracing one hand against it for support as he cautiously peeked through the doorway. No one was there, so Tony slipped into the hallway and made his way towards the staircase at the far side.

No one happened upon his halting progress and Tony made it to the staircase undiscovered. It had always creeped him out, how empty this large ship was. There should be a crew, something this size and with this many features should have maintenance workers and navigators; some signs of life and evidence of the people who lived here. But he only ever saw Corvis and his sister-wife, and a handful of Chitauri gruntworkers to manhandle him around and do whatever they were ordered. Tony couldn't tell them apart well enough to know if they were the same ones every time, or if he'd met dozens of the alien soldiers during his internment here. That strange fact was doing him a favor now, however, so he decided to count it among his very few blessings and not question it too much this time.

Tony had one arm slung over the railing of the winding staircase, using it like a crutch as he slipped and slid his aching body down the steps and wondered if he would have a heart attack and just die here. The irony of surviving all of the torture and abuse only to die on a flight of stairs was enough to keep his mind from the pain and his legs moving. When he got back to Earth, he promised himself, he would never feel guilty taking an elevator again. In fact, he was going to install elevators everywhere. Absolutely everywhere. Those three steps between his patio with the fountain and the oak deck? Gone. He never wanted to look at a step for the rest of his life.

It felt like he spent hours crawling down those steps. At the bottom he paused to pant and heave, and vomit up the sparse contents of his stomach. Then he pushed on.

The hallway they let out into was massive, and the hum of heavy machinery vibrated through the air, but there was no one in sight and it appeared just as empty as everywhere else. Tony thought he recognized the red-tint to the paint down here, and the moldy, coppery, smell in the air.

This area had the feel of an engine room, but for a much, much, larger engine than anything Tony had ever seen before. His palms were sweating from the heat seeping through the walls as he leaned against them to help him on his way. Tubes so large they looked like they could be used as water park slides obscured the ceiling and crept down the walls like wild vines. Several times, he swore he heard voices drifting down the hallway and ducked behind them for cover, but no one ever appeared and he would crawl back out to continue his trek. Smaller hallways branched off of the main one, and Tony peered down each one carefully, trying to summon any scrap of knowledge or recollection that might give him a hint as to which hallway he was looking for. Nothing jumped out at him, and nothing looked familiar.

A dozen offshoots passed by and Tony was beginning to panic. Was he on the wrong floor? Had he passed the hallway he needed already? What if he couldn't find it and he wandered around here until he was discovered? All of this couldn't be for nothing. He couldn't waste his one shot at freedom lost in this stupid engine room. Fear spurred his feet to work faster and he stumbled into tubes and bits of machinery with increasing frequency, bruising his shins and hips and catching himself against the wall like a drunk on a tilt-a-whirl.

"Come on," he whispered. "Come on, where are you?"

When a hallway came into view with a mess of green and silver tubing that sparked a feeling of familiarity in him, Tony was so elated he dove around the corner without checking it first and had to scramble backwards when he spotted a pair of Chitauri guards with their backs turned in his direction.

"Shit," he hissed, shoving himself down behind a large tube with paint that was flaking off and crumbled against the bare skin of his arms. "Please be napping on the job."

No shouts of surprise or alarm were raised, and after a minute Tony dared let himself breath again. The more he stared at the surrounding hallway and thought about it, the more certain he grew that this was the right turn. If memory served, at the other end of this relatively narrow hallway, which was still wide enough to drive a car down, was a small dark box of a room which was, according to Corvis's sister-wife, connected to the exhaust system of the ship's engine. All Tony knew for sure was that it was hot, and cramped, and when they shut the door it slowly filled with a gas that made him feel like he was drowning on the air around him.

In order to get to this hell-box, however, they had passed a small dock of shuttles. A handful of ships, not much bigger than a small jet on Earth had sat unguarded and mocking him with the promise of a freedom well beyond his reach as he'd been dragged towards the new day's torture.

Carefully, Tony crawled out from his hiding place and peeked around the corner. The Chitauri had moved further down the hallway away from him. They moved at an unhurried pace and didn't appear to be paying all too much attention to the hall around them. Tony guessed they must be on some sort of regular patrol, and not looking for an escaped prisoner. It was a long hallway, with a couple turns. If Tony was careful, he might be able to follow behind them at a distance, and slip into the docks before they reached the end and doubled back.

The pair rounded the first corner and Tony ducked into the hallway. He waited for them to vanish down the next turn and followed again. The next turn led to the docks. Tony couldn't believe his luck when the gleaming metal of the Chitauri's armor vanished again and he was able to make a stumbling break for the broad opening to the bay and head for the furthest ship he could find.

Tony leaned against the smooth hull of a dark grey vessel as he regained his breath from his short sprint. He'd never hot-wired an alien space-ship before. It couldn't be that hard, though, right? Right. Just find the drivers seat and then... figure it out. It took several laps to find the way in. He stumbled upon it by chance more than anything else when his hand, which was trailing along the hull as he walked in case he tripped again, passed over a hidden panel and a section of the wall peeled back.

"That'll do," he breathed, hauling himself through the opening and cursing at the handful of steps that lead up into the pair of cushioned seats in front of a wide windshield. As Tony sank into the leather-like pilot's chair it dawned on him that he couldn't actually remember the last time he had sat on anything but concrete and metal. His body nearly melted at the far-gone feeling of comfort. Tony struggled to keep his eyes open as he poked and prodded at every button and lever within his reach, hoping one of them would turn the ship on. In a stroke of luck, one of the switches worked and a bright screen of light flickered into existence in front of him. Alien symbols covered the screen, but Tony was sure he could find the basics through deduction and... trial and error.

A big virtual button glowed invitingly on the center of the screen. Tony obligingly pressed it and the engine rumbled to life.

"Okay," he breathed, grabbing a pair of joysticks which he assumed was the steering wheel. "Someone definitely heard that, so let's blow this Popsicle stand."

It took some bumbling, and a few dents and scrapes to the neighboring ships, but Tony got his craft airborne and gliding down the center runway towards a rather obvious exit door. "Now how do you open?" Tony murmured, searching the ship for some sort of garage door opener or a weapons system. As the ship drew near a small virtual prompt lit up across his screen again. This one had a simplified image of a door opening and some sort of blinking red alerts. "That works." He swiped the indecipherable alerts aside and pressed the highlighted image of the opening door. The prompt vanished, and a beat later the wall in front of him began to peel back, revealing open space beyond.

A furious alarm filled the air, and the lights in the hangar began to flash red as the oxygen in the bay was released into the void of space. Smaller bits of machinery that weren't bolted down were blown about by the escaping wind and scattered into space as Tony pushed his ship out of the bay.

His exhaustion was swept aside in the rush of relief and adrenaline coursing through his brain as he oriented the ship around until he found what he was looking for. He'd been banking on the hope that they would be in orbit of Earth and he was right. The sight of the green and blue planet lit up an unexpected bout of homesickness in his heart, and Tony urged the ship faster towards his destination.

Good luck never lasted forever, and it seemed this was where Tony's ran out. There was a loud bang and the ship suddenly rocked as something struck it from behind. "Looks like hide and go seek is over," he said tightly as he struggled to right the unfamiliar craft back onto its path. Another screen flicked online, this one displaying several charts- probably warnings about damage to the engine or shields- and a small video feed of the four ships following after.

He had no clue if this thing even had weapons, and even less idea of how to use them, so he pressed the accelerator again and jigged the ship in random patterns to avoid another hit. Descent onto the planet was fast, probably too fast for a ship where he hadn't actually discovered where the brakes were yet, but Tony didn't dare slow down with his pursuers dogging after his tail. Another blast struck one of his wings and the ship was sent rolling through the air. Alerts sprang up all around him and Tony struggled much harder to regain control this time. An image flickered to his right displaying a picture of the ship with the right wing highlighted in red and a big X slashed across it. "Ohhhh, that's probably not good."

Another blast sent him flipping end over end and plummeting in a ball of smoke towards a thick forest below. No! Nonono! He couldn't die here, he was so close! He was nearly home! The ship struck the trees hard, ripping through them like a wrecking ball, but the thousands of mini impacts slowed his crash. By the time he struck dirt, the ship flipped and rolled into a violent stop, but didn't disintegrate entirely on impact. When it came to a final creaking halt, wedged on its side against a very solid looking trunk, only about half of it remained. The windshield was gone, along with an entire section of the cockpit wall and the co-pilot's chair was nowhere to be found.

Tony's collar bone was on fire where the seatbelt pressed against it, and his head swam. Sparks of red and black danced across his eyes and robbed him of entire sections of his vision. It cost him precious seconds for his shaking hands to find the clip and free himself enough to slide out of the seat and onto the dirt below. There, he crawled out from under the ship's mangled remains and into the forest, heading for a thick tangle of bushes.

As the ringing in his ears faded, he heard the sounds of the rest of the ships incoming. On hands and knees he scrambled under the bushes, shoving through the thick branches and ignoring where sharp points dug into his skin and tugged at his clothes. He didn't have the strength left to run, or the time to find somewhere better, so he hunkered down as deep under the bushes as he could get and twisted around to face where his ship had crashed. A twisted piece of metal from the hull of the ship was squeezed in one of his hands. It was hot to the touch and a sharp point dug into his palm, but it was the closest thing to a weapon he could find.

A heavy wind shook the bushes around him as his pursuers circled his downed ship and searched out landing points. Through the gap beneath the scraggly bushes and the forest floor he watched as a dozen Chitauri clambered out of their ships and began inspecting the wreckage. Tony tried to slow his breathing and hold as still as he could. As soon as they figured out he wasn't in there, they would begin sweeping the nearby area. There was no way they wouldn't find him.

An especially large Chitauri climbed back out from the half-a-cockpit and shouted orders at the nearby soldiers, swinging his arm out to gesture at the surrounding forest. He turned to point at a specific soldier nearby when a sharp blast filled the air and the large Chitauri dropped like a doll who's strings had been cut, a large bloody hole in the back of his helmet.

The rest of the soldiers immediately fell into a defensive line and began firing back into the nearby woods. Tony tried to smash himself further into the dirt to avoid any stray shots that may strike his hiding spot. A chill swept through the air as the scene before him darkened like something was obscuring the sun, and a deep rumble like thunder shook the ground. Tony couldn't see past the branches overhead, but he could have sworn the sky was clear when he had been shot down. He hadn't seen a single cloud or he would have remembered -he would have tried to use it for cover if he could. Some of the Chitauri glanced up as well as though they shared Tony's confusion.

Tony's hair stood on end and his world went white when a great arc of lightning fell from the sky and struck one of the Chitauri vessels. Tony shook his head and tried to blink the sparklers from his eyes while the sounds of screaming and weapons firing filled the air around him. By the time his vision returned, the screaming had gone silent, and all that remained in the stagnant air was the crackling of a burning log and distant rumbling of fading thunder.

"Thor?" he breathed.

"Who's Thor?" a voice chirruped right in his ear.

"Holy mother of-!" Tony yelped and tried to scramble away from the voice, but the branches had him effectively snared and he only managed an inch or two. Laying beside him underneath the bushes was a girl. She hardly looked old enough to be out of highschool. Her brown hair was pulled back into a high pony tail to reveal huge forest green eyes sparkling up at him. "Wh-what?" Tony gasped. There was no way she could have crawled under the brush without him noticing, but she definitely hadn't been here before him. What was going on?

The stranger reached out to grab him by the wrist, slinging his arm over her slender shoulder and hauling him upward with surprising strength. He offered no resistance, and could only gape in fascinated horror as they stood and the brush which had been tearing into his skin moments ago was suddenly passing through his body as harmlessly as a hologram. "How-?"

"Hey!" the girl called out, ignoring his shocked question as she guided him out of the brush and back into the clearing where she let him sink back to his knees. "I found someone!"

"We were just-" Tony continued to gasp, glancing back and forth between the bushes they had just left, which looked very convincingly real, and the slender girl standing over him. "How did you do that?"

"Kitty," a voice, deep and feminine, like a fine porcelain vase rang down from above. "We've spoken of this. You mustn't scare people like that."

From the grey sky above, a woman was descending slowly. Her arms were held out like she was holding something up, though her hands were empty as far as he could tell, and her eyes were glowing bright with tiny arcs of electricity dancing across her dark skin. Her short cropped hair shone white like fresh snow.

"He's fine," Kitty shrugged, not looking the least bit chastised as she turned to offer him a bright smile. "Right?"

The edges of Tony's vision were going dark again, and he swayed on his knees as the events of his wild ride caught up to him and everything faded away. The last thing he saw was those deep green eyes flashing with panic before his mind slipped from his body and the realm of consciousness.

****End** **

****.** **

****Chapter 2 Preview:**** "... _What he couldn't figure out was why they hadn't made a move yet. Any half-way decent sniper would have taken the shot by now. He had given them half a dozen chances at least over the last mile in an attempt to draw them out, and still they had made no move to do anything but follow at a distance. Were they waiting for him to fall asleep? A part of him laughed at their caution. Another part found it sensible. The bravado of his previous guests, after all, had led to nothing but their deaths. This one was different, and that concerned him_..."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This book will have a revolving perspective and follow several 'groups' of characters. Most perspective shifts right now will be chapter based, but this may change as the groups start meeting up and things roll into faster motion.
> 
> I'm sorry if there are any growing pains as I get used to writing these new characters. I've been writing the GotG from Peter's perspective for so long, and it's all I've written, that this is me branching out. I am still learning and growing and pretty new to writing stories, so I appreciate any help, constructive criticism, ect. If you notice any grammar issues feel free to point them out! (I was 150k into the main seriese before I realized I was tagging my dialogue wrong.) If you're uncomfortable posting it as a review you can PM me, my inbox is always open, and I allow anonymous asks on my tumbler "ThereAreMonstersInTheDark." Same for any other random questions you may have.
> 
> I am not an expert on the Avengers. I will try my very best to keep all of the facts straight, but if you notice I messed up some character detail, missed something, forgot something, call me on it! I might not be able to fix everything, but if it's something I can fix I will. There's a lot of variation on Canon in Marvel, but for the most part I want to keep things close to the movies. I might, however, be leaning closer to the earliest X-men movies for the X-men, with some throwback to the X-Men: Evolution cartoons I grew up knowing.
> 
> Thank you for reading and giving this story a chance!
> 
> -OMaM


	2. Hopeless Wanderer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A soldier wakes up in theTitle is from "Hopless Wanderer" by Mumford and Sons

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title is from "Hopless Wanderer" by Mumford and Sons
> 
> Avengers belongs to Marvel. This is a fan-work for entertainment purposes only.

**Chapter 2: Hopeless Wanderer**

The sounds of birdsong still disoriented him in the morning. It shouldn't. A handful of seasons had passed since the catastrophic event that had shaken the globe and left his handlers in such disarray that he had managed to escape into the unknown. A handful of seasons since the last time he had been put back in the freezer, his mind silenced in between brief stints of work, just gaping black holes in his memories and no idea how many days, or years, or decades had passed this time.

The memories of so many days in a row was almost overwhelming, but he could take solace in the way they were largely so quiet and uneventful; They all but blended together into one endless, blurry dream, interspersed with the occasional brief but violent encounter with shadows of his past. Reluctantly, the soldier opened his eyes. Golden sunlight filtered through the canopy overhead, rippling in the soft breeze and he felt like he was trapped under water. When he sat up he found the dirt around him had been torn apart. Finger grooves and boot marks dug furrows into the forest floor like had been thrashing all night, but when he held up his hands, turning them over and over in a ritualized inspection, he found only dirt under his fingernails. No blood.

Sometimes he wasn't so lucky.

Sometimes he woke up covered in things much less pleasant than dirt, and surrounded by things much less alive than the birds chirruping on around him in blissful oblivion to the monster below.

Today he was lucky, though, so he rose, and stretched, and made his way down to the stream burbling through the underbrush nearby. When he rinsed his arms off in a small pool, it turned cloudy with mud. There were no streamers of crimson that had to be washed from his mind along with his skin.

The water, probably late-season snowmelt, was cold against the skin of his right hand. His left remained strangely numb to temperatures, and the metal glittered like fish as the dirt flaked away.

With his hands cleaned, he peeled the bandages under his shirt up to check on the slowly healing gash on his side. The edges were red and puffy, and stung at the touch like they were developing an infection, not surprising considering he'd been pierced through with a thick water pipe in a collapsing building that looked like it had been abandoned long before the fallout. It had finally stopped oozing blood, though, and the flesh around the scab looked like it was beginning to knit back together. He didn't have any tools or medicine to treat it with, but his modified body should be able to handle some minor infection on its own as long as he took it easy.

After that, came the walking. He was always walking. He didn't dare stay in one place too long, someone would find him. Or he would find someone else. He needed to stay invisible. Invisible was better. Invisible was safer for everyone.

By Midday he had followed the stream to where it merged into a river. Here, he stopped to refill his canteen and eat a quick meal of edible roots he'd upturned yesterday, supplemented with some very old protein bars, and to think about what to do about the shadow he had acquired. For at least the last two miles, someone had been following him. This didn't bother him as much as the fact that he didn't know when exactly he had picked up this follower. Not many people had the skill to follow him without him realizing it right away.

The soldier kept his face towards the river while he ate. He was pretty sure his tail was in the big tree behind him with the gnarled branch. It was too far away to tell with any certainty, but he thought he had caught a shadow moving in the wrong direction as the branches swayed in the wind.

What he couldn't figure out was why they hadn't made a move yet. Any half-way decent sniper would have taken the shot by now. He had given them half a dozen chances at least over the last mile in an attempt to draw them out, and still they had made no move to do anything but follow at a distance. Were they waiting for him to fall asleep? A part of him laughed at their caution. Another part found it sensible. The bravado of his previous guests, after all, had led to nothing but their deaths. This one was different, and that concerned him.

The stranger in the tree had still not made a move by the time the soldier decided he had lingered too long on the riverbank and moved on, abandoning the river and weaving into the deeper parts of the forest in an attempt to shake this new tail.

At some point amid his switchbacks and ducking between hills and brambles the stranger vanished, and he dared hope they may have either lost interest in him, or his maneuvers had worked. By the time the sun was beginning to set and the first chills of evening were setting in, the soldier was feeling pretty confident in his solitude. He'd sighted a clearing with a small pond from the top of a hill earlier and was heading towards it now with the intention of refilling his now empty canteen and spending the night nearby.

The trees cut off abruptly at the edge of the clearing, allowing the soldier to pause in the shadows and survey the open area before entering. Immediately, something strange caught his attention at the shore of the pond. A ring of rocks, neatly arranged around a pile of kindling and firewood sat in he middle of a dirt patch. It was obvious this was a fresh fire ring, not the left-overs from some previous camper who had failed to disassemble their camp before leaving. In fact, he doubted any fire had ever been lit there before. If the freshly churned dirt and lack of ash didn't make that obvious enough, the pair of freshly killed rabbits, already gutted and lined neatly next to it, was more than enough to set off alarms in his head.

The hairs on the back of his neck stuck up and the soldier quickly melted back into the forest. He wouldn't be sleeping tonight.

-x-

The next morning, as the birds began their songs and the sun rose over the mountains, the Soldier was still being followed. There was a gap in the birdsong to the East. It was brief, but he had no doubt that something had disturbed them. Something big enough to give them pause, but not enough to send them scattering to the sky or screeching alarms. His shadow seemed to favor the trees.

He had spent the whole night trying to lose his tracks, but it hadn't worked. The stranger was still there, and still had made no move to engage. Did they plan to run him down? To push him like a spooked deer until he was too weak and exhausted to put up a good fight? It was a cowardly tactic, but no less effective for that. The soldier knew he had more endurance than a standard human, but even he could succumb to a lack of rest eventually, and the healing injuries on his side were slowing him down significantly.

By mid morning he had stumbled across a deep gorge that offered him no way down. It's sheer sides dropped several hundred feet and landed in a rocky canyon floor that would have no mercy for any soul unlucky enough to slip over the edge. The impassable landmark cut straight across his intended path, and he was forced to pace along its side until a way down appeared.

By the afternoon no such way had appeared and he retreated to the cool shade of the deeper forest to take a break. His canteen had been empty since the afternoon before, and he was kicking at himself viciously for letting himself be made stupid in his vie to escape his pursuer. The nearest water source he could find was the dried up river at the base of the canyon he'd been pacing along, and he hadn't spared the time to hunt or forage for more food. He'd been so certain that the shadow could be shaken or dealt with quickly that he had not planned ahead for the pursuit to last this long.

By evening, his stomach was growling and a sharp ache in his skull heralded the dehydration beginning to take its toll on his body. The wound on his side was beginning to burn and throb with each step and his temper was beginning to rear its own short but ugly head. If the stranger would just engage, this could be over, but they always seemed to be just far enough away that they could flee long before the Soldier could double back to catch them and force an altercation, but close enough to swoop in with ease if he attempted to catch a short nap or stop to set snares. The soldier's own initial underestimation of his enemy had put him at a disadvantage.

He did not sleep that night either. His progress was slowed considerably by his exhaustion, and lack of knowledge of the terrain. By the third time he was forced to turn around by an obstacle he had not expected, his stomach was burning with acid and frustration. His temper was short and frayed, and he had no patience for his own mistakes right now.

When the sun rose that morning he was sitting on a stream bed, taking a break and refilling his canteen as he reconsidered the wisdom of choosing to run instead of fight after all. This problem was dragging on much longer than it needed to. He'd lost track of his tail again some time before sunrise and now he found himself a thick tree to lean against. The burly trunk grew from an outcropping of rock, and here he was protected from most angles from the surrounding forest and any opportune sniper shots his still unknown guest may take. The only way to see him was from directly in front where the trees were small and thin, and provided terrible coverage.

Exhaustion settled heavy in his bones, and he allowed the peaceful forest and soft murmuring of the stream to lull him into a half-sleep. He awoke some time later to the rumbling of his stomach and the sense of being watched.

"Alright,who's out there?!" he shouted into the surrounding trees, drawing a blade from where it had been tucked into his boot. His last gun had been lost, buried under several tons of concrete in the last city he had fled, so he would just have to make do. "Show yourself and let's get this over with!"

Something moved in the trees to his left. He could hear the branch creak and the leaves rustle, but the rocks around him blocked his view. There was heavy thunk, like someone had dropped down to land on the far side of the rocks, and he took his chance, leaping over the boulders and driving his blade straight down into where his follower should be standing. His knife cut through empty air and he froze. At his feet sat a backpack, the kind a kid would carry to school, with little cartoon cats and dogs dancing across it. The sound of laughter brought his attention upwards where a man was crouched easily on a branch some ten yards or so up a tree.

"Good reflexes and all," the stranger called down, "but it's just a bag."

"Who are you?" the soldier growled. The man up in the tree had some sort of tactical gear on, but it wasn't from any organization he recognized. He had dirty blond hair that somehow managed to look unruly despite being cropped short. A dark bow and quiver full of matching arrows was strapped to his back, and the braces and guards around his wrists gave off the impression this was his main weapon.

The stranger in the tree gave a little wave. "You can call me Hawkeye," he said through a lopsided grin.

"What do you want?" The soldier rolled the knife in his hands, very aware of the fact that the rocks he was backed up against made him an easy target for the sniper above, and the burst of pain in his side where he had aggravated his wound meant getting back over it would be a problem. His enemy didn't have a weapon drawn, though, and if it came to it, he could probably make it to the trees for cover before this Hawkeye could fire off his first shot.

"To give you that." Hawkeye pointed at the bag still sitting at the soldier's feet. "You've been dragging your feet through my forest for days. You clearly have no clue where you're going and you're injured, so I thought I might help you along before you died here and I had to bury you or worry someone would come looking."

Cautiously, the soldier dropped to one knee, still ready to flee into cover if the sniper made any sudden moves, and unzipped the bag. Inside was a first aide kit, some bottles of water, a dozen or so granola bars, a firestarter, and a thin foil blanket.

"What the hell is this?"

"You're welcome," Hawkeye grinned. "Look I'm not trying to give you the bum's rush, here. You can take a day or two and recover. Since you were trying so hard to get across the canyon, I'm guessing you're planning to avoid the town at the bottom of the hills. Well, it just so happens I know a way across, but it's a rough trail and you're in a bit of a bad shape right now. There's an old campsite a couple miles up this stream-"

"Are you an idiot?" he interrupted roughly. "If this was all you wanted, why have you been chasing me for days? You had plenty of opportunities to engage."

A pair of sunglasses obscured the stranger's eyes, but he brought one hand up to rub at the back of his neck. "I wasn't sure if you had a gun or not," he admitted sheepishly. "You looked like the type to shoot first and ask questions later. I tried leaving you some rabbits as a peace offering but you just ran away. Maybe I should have left a note or something.

"Look, I came here to do what I wanted to do, so... take the campsite, leave it, I don't care. Just don't die in my forest, okay kid?"

The soldier narrowed his eyes. "I am not a-"

But the stranger was already up. "Okay, see ya!" Hawkeye took a running leap from his branch and, much like a squirrel, was quickly swallowed up by the forest.

The soldier grabbed up the bag and hurtled it after the retreating form with a curse that sent a bird startling with a squawk from a nearby tree. He stood for a while, seething and breathing heavily through his nose before retrieving the bag and dragging it back to between the rocks where he had been sitting earlier.

**End**

**.**

**Chapter 3 Preview:**  "... _I need this!" Jane Foster's voice was rough with exhaustion. "I was up all night converting the data from our equipment."_

_"Yeah, and I was up all night lugging your equipment around so you could_ get _the readings!" Darcy shot back, but there was no real anger in her voice, and Natasha felt no need to interrupt their fairly regular ritual. "Ugh, I miss having my own intern_..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a much shorter chapter than most of my regular readers will be used to, it's not even 3k. It's the shortest non-one-shot I've ever written, lol. Since Tenebris will have several revolving plotlines, this might be a regular occurrence in this book. It's also probably a blessing in disguise because writing an entire chapter featuring one character without a name and an unknown follower was... strange. xD And I'm sure it was exhausting for you guys as well. Rest assured this won't be for long, but as far as I know, Bucky should be unaware of his name or really much of anything about his own past right now.
> 
> Once we get into it though, these two are probably my favorite odd mashup I get to play around with here. What can I say, angry balls of rage and sarcastic balls of sunshine who complete each other are my favorite thing. I guess I don't get enough of it in the other books. lol.
> 
> Anyways, thanks for reading! I'm excited for the next chapter, it's turning out to be quite fun.
> 
> -OMaM


	3. Something Somebody Stole

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“And even though I know the river is wide_
> 
>   
> 
> 
> _I walk down every evening and I stand on the shore_
> 
>   
> 
> 
> _And try to cross to the opposite side_
> 
>   
> 
> 
> _So I can finally find out what I've been looking for.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from "River of Dreams" by Billy Joel
> 
> Purely a fanwork. Characters belong to Marvel

**Chapter 3:** **Something Somebody Stole**

"Whoawhoahwhoah! Take it easy on the coffee, Jane! This is all we have to last us for a while, and I do not want to be stuck hauling your equipment around without the boost of caffeine to help me."

From her vantage point in the loft, Natasha could hear the sounds of her companions beginning to stir. About time, it was nearly noon.

"I need this!" Jane Foster's voice was rough with exhaustion. "I was up all night converting the data from our equipment."

"Yeah, and I was up all night lugging your equipment around so you could get the readings!" Darcy shot back, but there was no real anger in her voice, and Natasha felt no need to interrupt their fairly regular ritual. "Ugh, I miss having my own intern."

Natasha took another sip from her own warm mug of tea and kept her eyes on the street outside as her lips curled into a small smile. Their mostly friendly discord reminded her of her old team, and brought fond memories for her to dwell on when she should be focusing on her lookout position. She was becoming such an old lady.

The lighthearted arguing below wound down to its usual stalemate, and Natasha gave a languid stretch before abandoning her post for the time being. It was more habit and a cautious nature that kept her up here so often, than any immediate threat that they were being followed or in danger of being discovered just yet.

"Did you find anything?" she called down as she descended the ladder leading up to the loft, her borrowed teacup balanced carefully in one hand.

Jane let out a long breathy sigh that told Natasha all she needed to know before the scientist even said a word. "No," she shuffled a few of the papers in front of herself as though she felt the need to prove that there was nothing of interest on them. "Just the same old gibberish and white noise."

Natasha offered the dejected woman a warm smile and a soft pat on her shoulder. "Did you want to stay here another night and try again or move on to another location?"

From her seat across from Jane, Darcy made a face at the mention of changing locations again.

Jane ran a hand roughly through her hair. "I don't know. I was so sure we'd finally find something this time. I don't even know which direction to head next."

"I vote somewhere downhill," Darcy said, raising one hand.

"Where is Erik?" Natasha asked. "He might be able to help steer us on from here."

Darcy made a snort. "Erik can't steer himself to the breakfast table without getting lost along the way." Beneath her harsh words was the heavy weight of worry for her friend who had been injured in ways that none of them could understand.

"He's in the back room." Jane pushed out her chair and stood up. "He helped us find this place," she reminded Darcy quietly, then swallowed the last of her coffee in one swig.

"And what a gold mine it has been." Darcy stood as well and began gathering the pages scattered across the table into neat piles as the other two women left.

The back room was once upon a time a master bedroom belonging to someone who had trouble separating their home life and work life. A bland old desk with a whiteboard hung over it, and a flock of sticky notes with names and numbers and all manner of nonsense scribbled across them took up a good deal of its space. Another wall was taken up almost entirely by a large closet with four sliding panels, each one a massive mirror. Erik was drawing on these doors with some dry erase pens that Darcy had somehow managed to breath life back into, though they made ear-splitting squeals when they moved against the glass. A portable solar lamp sat in the middle of the king sized-bed, casting everything in a warm yellow glow.

"Erik?" Jane called, knocking against the door frame when Erik continued to mumble to himself, apparently unaware of their presence.

He jumped, and the pen he'd been using clattered to the ground. "Oh! Jane! And Natal- Natasha. You snuck up on me."

"Sorry, Erik," Natasha apologized with a smile. "We didn't mean to startle you."

"No, no, of course not!" Erik bent and retrieved his pen. "I know you wouldn't. I was just so distracted I-" He paused suddenly and turned back to the mirror, his lips moving as though to form words but no sound came out.

"Erik?" Jane asked.

His attention snapped back to the women he'd been speaking to. "Right! Distracted, I get so distracted, but you-you know that. Why are you here? Can I help with anything?"

Jane stepped closer to Erik and placed on hand on his arm. The action seemed to ground him and his nervous fidgeting slowed just a fraction under her touch. "Yes, Erik, we were wondering if you could help us figure out where we should go from here?"

"Back," he answered right away.

"Back where?"

Erik licked his lips. " _Back_ , back. Back and over, really more of an over than a back, but it's how we  _get_  back, you see?"

Jane glanced up at Natasha helplessly, but Natasha was just as confused as she was. Erik's answers often made little sense to anyone but himself, but it seemed he was getting worse again.

"Where do you want us to go back to?" Jane tried. "Is it somewhere we can walk to from here, or-?"

"No," Erik said with a soft smile, like Jane had just told him a joke. "We can't walk there from here. We can't walk there from anywhere."

"Erik," Natasha stepped in, "we need to know if you have anything that can help us decide where we should go next. We're looking for anomalies on Jane's equipment, remember?"

That seemed to help, a new wave of clarity washed over his eyes and he perked up. "The anomalies, yes, of course. They're so faint right now, but they'll grow."

Jane rubbed his arm in an attempt to keep him with them. Sometimes when he got excited like this he'd fall back to talking with the voices in his head for long fits, and they couldn't afford to have him doing that right now. "We know, Erik."

"We just have to be there," he continued. "We just have to be ready when they are. They'll help us- They want to help us."

"Erik," Jane pressed a little louder. "I need you to stay with us right now."

"I'm here," he promised. "You're right, this isn't the right place. It's too clean- too bright. What we're looking for will be darker, I can smell the rain sometimes, and I heard the kids laughing."

"Kids?" Jane asked. This was a new detail.

Natasha brought one hand up to rest a finger against her lips. "Like a school?" She was already thinking about where the nearest possibilities were, and which would be the safest to test first. "Or a playground?"

"No, they're not supposed to be there, I think," Erik admitted, beginning to fiddle with the marker in his hands. His mood had taken a sudden shift, and now the corners of his lips were tugged downward and the groove on his forehead had deepened, a sure sign that they had pressed him too hard and needed to take a break.

Jane began rubbing big circles on his back. "That's great, Erik, that's all we need. Now, why don't you tell me about what you've written here?" This always did the trick, and Erik immediately brightened back up and launched into a winding explanation about his work on the mirrors.

While he rambled between breathy, half-finished, explanations that she knew even Jane only half-understood, Natasha studied the symbols scrawled in several colors before her. She didn't recognize any of them as any language she had ever seen. Nobody did. Yet they seemed to make perfect sense to Erik, who was tapping the butt of the marker against a picture of nine circles with a line piercing through them.

The sound of footsteps racing down the hallway broke her concentration.

"Hey Nat?" Darcy called as she reached the doorway and leaned through. "I think you might want to come take a look at this."

Darcy lead her back to the main room, where she indicated the front window which had been boarded up since long before they had arrived here. Between two of the boards was a thin gap, probably left there intentionally by whoever had put it up, which allowed them to look out onto the main road. Natasha pressed her face up against the boards and peered through the gap. At first she saw nothing. The street was just as empty and desolate as it had been when she'd left her post, and the sky was an uninterrupted canvas of ugly grey clouds, smeared and raggedy, promising nothing but a damp breeze and fine layer of mist in the morning. Then she caught just the faintest flicker of movement out of the corner of her eye. Something had shifted in the gap between two tall houses, and a low hum, one that she felt in her bones more than she heard with her ears, filled the air.

"Damnit," she hissed. "How did they get so close?" Natasha pulled away from the boarded window to wave at Darcy. "Make sure the others know and get the essentials together, then I want you all to lay low in the-"

"In the mud room with the back-door so we can make a quick exit," Darcy interrupted her, already grabbing a handful of charts from underneath the data sheets on the table and sweeping the arm full of equipment into a heavy canvas satchel which she hefted over her shoulder. "We know the drill by now."

Without another word, Natasha scaled the ladder back to her lookout position so she could have a better view of the whole street. It was possible, actually it was quite likely, that the Chitauri didn't know that they were here, and this was nothing more than a poorly timed regular sweep. In this case, their best bet was to hunker down and wait them out. A hand reached out to pat at the black and silver weapon strapped to her hip. It had been modified with technology stolen from the invaders, and could do some serious damage in a pinch, but if it came down to a fight, it might not be enough to protect everyone, especially since she had no way of knowing how far away the alien's backup was, or how many of them were out there.

-x-

"So what's the verdict Wonder Woman?" Darcy's only somewhat hushed question greeted Natasha as she peeked into the mud room some hour or so later.

"It was just a scout, and I don't think he saw anything worth returning for."

"Well, I think that answers our question about staying here or moving on," Jane sighed from where she sat on the floor beside Erik who was fiddling with a piece of paper, folding it and unfolding it with a frown on his face.

"It doesn't answer where, though," Natasha said practically, reaching for the map in Darcy's bag.

Darcy pulled out the map and handed it over. "Sure it does. Whichever way the Tin-Man went, I say we go the other way."

Natasha resisted the urge to chastise the younger girl for her hastiness. However she had phrased it, with no idea which way they were supposed to be going in the end, away from the enemy was a perfectly valid direction. It just Irked the trained assassin to be stumbling around in the dark like this.

"Okay," she breathed, unrolling the map on the floor for all to see. A dozen small 'X's marked off a smattering of buildings, and Natasha added a new one over the house they were in now. "Somewhere dirty, where kids aren't supposed to be, but can get into anyways... Probably not the playgrounds, but that doesn't really discount the schools. If it's dark, it could be after hours, or just abandoned."

"This close to the city, they're probably all abandoned," Jane hummed, scooting closer to peer over the map. After a silent moment, she tucked a strand of hair behind her ears and pointed at a shaded rectangle that indicated a school yard. "Here, what about this one? It's in the right direction, looks like there are plenty of places to stay hidden along the way, and the area around it looks pretty open. As long as it's not in some sort of hole, the equipment should be able to get a really good read from there. What do you think, Erik?"

The man jumped at the sound of his name. "Hm? What? Oh, yes, that looks just fine to me."

The answer was less than promising, but it was as good a place as any for now. "We'll leave as soon as the sun goes down. Until then, let's gather everything and get some rest. Erik, did you already erase your work from the closet?"

"I did," Darcy piped up, rolling her map back up and stuffing it into the canvas bag.

Erik gave her a look of betrayal. "I wish you wouldn't do that every time," he grumbled as he stood to leave the crowded mudroom. "Now I have to start over."

Once he had vanished from sight, Natasha shared a look with Darcy.

"I'll take care of it again when we leave for real," the younger girl promised with a quirk of her lips. "Besides, he was out of space. Another hour and he'd of been writing on the walls, and that's much harder to get rid of."

**End**

**.**

**Chapter 4 Preview:**  "... _Tony was quickly distracted from his worries by the thought of food, real food, not just the horrible slime they had fed him in space. "You have any shawarma?"_

_The younger girl, Kitty, made a face. "What's Shawarma?"_

_The smile on Tony's face wavered when his mind churned up no answer. "I don't know," he murmured, trying to dip into the cloudy bank of memories around New York, but coming up with nothing. He felt like he was missing the punchline to his own joke_..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, life got busy, and I've barely been able to touch my own projects. Hopefully regular updates can resume for this and Luciferous soon.
> 
> Thank you for your patience!
> 
> -OMaM


	4. Welcome Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"All my nightmares escaped my head_
> 
> _Bar the door, please don't let them in."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title is from 'Welcome Home' by Radical Face
> 
> This is a fan work for entertainment only.

**Chapter 4: Welcome Home**

"Kitty! Get away from there!"

"Oh! Oh! I think he's coming to!"

Tony groaned and tried to roll away from the bright voice that felt like it was piercing straight through his skull.

"Kitty! For heaven's sake, let him come to in peace."

Kitty? He didn't know any Kitty. Was she new here? And what was he laying on? It was so soft... In jumbled bits and pieces his escape and subsequent crash landing on Earth came back to him and he shot up with a gasp.

There was a startled yelp and his skull cracked into something hard that sent stars and sparks bursting through his head. With another groan, Tony clutched at his forehead and tried to make out his surroundings through watery eyes.

"What did I just say!?" came the first voice. "Give him some space." A deep blue blur shoed a brighter, pinker, blur away and a cup of something cold was pressed into one of his hands. "Here, drink this."

The water was sweet and free of the metallic tang that had been ever-present during his imprisonment, and it grounded him into the present. By the time he had finished off the cup his head was feeling a bit clearer and he could process the world around him with more success. He was laying on a bed, maybe more of a cot, in what may have once been a large warehouse, but had apparently been converted for people to live in. Large shelving units had been pushed aside and rearranged into makeshift walls, sectioning off several 'rooms' in a far corner. A kitchenette of sorts took up another corner, next to a set of couches surrounding a table that appeared to be made of two large desks shoved together.

"Do you... live here?" he croaked out. He was on Earth right? Phasing through bushes, floating through the sky, controlling lightning. Maybe he had gotten it wrong. Maybe this wasn't home.

"Just part time." The girl, Kitty, the one who had dragged him out from under the bushes, had apparently not gone far. As she spoke she dropped down to sit on a cot off to his right, one hand pressed delicately against a red spot on her forehead. The dark suit she'd worn earlier was gone, and now she was dressed in pale capris and a pastel pink sweater. "It's like a satellite location."

"Please," the woman who had handed him the water, the same one with the smooth voice and shockingly white hair from the forest, gently took the empty cup back from him. "Excuse our manners. My name is Storm, and this is Shadowcat, though we often call her Kitty."

"We?" Tony asked.

"Yes." She placed the cup aside on a small end table. "There are several more members in our group, but they are busy keeping their eyes on the perimeter. We may have brought some undue attention on ourselves with our display of power in the forest. Introductions can be taken care of when they return. Do you think you could handle some food?"

Tony was quickly distracted from his worries by the thought of food, real food, not just the horrible slime they had fed him in space. "You have any shawarma?"

The younger girl, Kitty, made a face. "What's shawarma?"

The smile on Tony's face wavered when his mind churned up no answer. "I don't know," he murmured, trying to dip into the cloudy bank of memories around New York, but coming up with nothing. He felt like he was missing the punchline to his own joke.

"Weeeell," Kitty drawled while the two women exchanged a quick look. "I don't think we have any of that, but we have some leftover Mac n' Cheese from lunch if you want something quick."

Leftover Mac n' Cheese sounded like the most amazing thing in all of existence, and his hunger must have been plain on his face because Kitty immediately hopped up and trotted off towards the open kitchenette.

"While she is doing that," Storm said, collecting his attention once more, "perhaps you could tell me your name?"

"Tony," he answered, realizing he'd never introduced himself. "Tony Stark."

The woman's pristine white eyebrows twitched upward. "The billionaire?"

So they had heard of him, which meant this was probably Earth, but it didn't explain why they possessed these strange skills, and why they were living in a warehouse. "Yeah, that one," he confirmed. "How far are we from New York?" The ride down from space had been dizzying. He was reasonably certain he had crashed down somewhere in the United States, at least.

"Quite a ways," Storm murmured. "Why would you want to go there?"

"Well, I mean, beside my friends, family, and loved ones, there's my house and all my stuff that I'd like to get back to." And his suits. He wanted to see Pepper with his own eyes, and he wanted to give Corvis one nasty surprise the next time they met.

A strange look had taken form in her eyes, something uncannily like pity, as she asked, "How did you come to crash on Earth in spaceship, and with the Chitauri on your tail?"

Tony didn't like the look in her eyes at all. "I was kidnapped and imprisoned, but I escaped. I'd like to get back home now. Who are you people, what's going on here?"

A hand settled on his shoulder and pressed him gently back down to his cot. He hadn't even realized he had stood up. "Calm down," she soothed. "There is no need to raise your voice." As he settled back down he swallowed against the tightness in his throat from shouting. "I believe we are your friends, and it seems, we may have some long stories to share, but first, why don't you tell me how long you have been gone from this planet?"

Tony opened and closed his mouth a couple times before answering. "I don't know. What is... what is today's date?"

"I believe it would be mid October two-thousand and thirteen."

Over a year. He'd been gone for over a year. Part of him felt like that was impossible, and another part felt like it should have been longer. Most of him just wanted to go home.

"I need to go," Tony said, pushing himself off the cot again and looking around for his shoes. "I need to get back to New York, so just point me in the right direction and-"

Storm stood as well, but made no move to stop him. "You must have been gone a very long time." There was that damnable note of  _pity_  again, buried under her calm composure. It reminded him of Steve, and drove him nuts. "There is nothing left there. It was all destroyed in the blast."

The blast. Tony froze in the middle of checking under the cot and stood to face her again. "The nuke?" he croaked out, a frozen hand settling against his heart and squeezing. "I stopped it."

The wrinkles in the corners of her eyes deepened just a fraction.

"No!" Tony shouted, his hands balling into fists. Because she had to be lieing. "I stopped it! I sent it through the worm hole! I blew it up!" Even as he yelled, visions drifted through the back of his mind of distorting warp fields, and the nuke approaching the wormhole.

"You are tired," Storm stated, softly. "Perhaps this conversation should wait until-"

"No, no, tell me. You're going to tell me everything. Right now. What happened to New York? The world? Who the hell are you people? And where are the Avengers?"

"Very well." Storm lowered herself back to the cot she'd been sitting on and gestured for Tony to do the same. He did, with begrudging relief. His body hurt a lot more than he wanted to admit right now. When she was satisfied that he wasn't going anywhere, she folded her hands neatly on her lap and began. "I confess, the details around the event in question were somewhat... lost in the ensuing chaos, but I will tell you what I know for certain. When the Chitauri began their assault on Earth, the military launched a nuclear weapon at the city, in the hope, I believe, to stem the flow of the invasion at the cost of the city."

"I know," tony interrupted her. "I sent it through the wormhole, though. It should have..."

"It seemed someone tried to send it through the portal the aliens were using to launch their assault," Storm continued serenely, as though he hadn't spoken, "Although they did not succeed entirely, and the weapon activated inside of the portal rather than on the other side, and the resulting blast destroyed New York and shook the world, it did buffer the world from the worst of the radioactivity. The portal was... warped, however. Rather than collapsing completely or flickering out, it created a permanent sort of scar across the sky. I believe the favored name for it nowadays is 'The Devil's Eye.'"

"What are you saying? The portal is... still active? That's not possible. That shouldn't be... possible." His long-awaited dream come true of escaping was swiftly turning into a nightmare.

"I am sorry that you have struggled so hard to return only to be met with what must feel like poor news indeed."

Tony barely even registered Storm's words.

"What of my friends; The Avengers?"

"I'm afraid I don't have many answers there. If they are alive, then they would have gone underground quickly. I doubt they will be easy to locate. The Chitauri are looking for something here. Those cities that survived the initial blast were decimated by the waves of invasion to follow."

"They're after the Tesseract," Tony thought out loud. "That's the only thing they could be after. If they don't have it, then the Avengers have to." They were still alive. Tony's mind clung to that thought like a starving dog to the last scrap of food. They were alive, and he would find them, reassemble the Avengers, and kick every Chitauri's ass from here back to whatever evil planet they had come down from.

"The Tesseract?" Storm echoed.

"Yeah it's a... glowing blue cube, about..." Tony held up his hands to approximate the shape of the Tesseract, "Yay big. It's ancient, extremely powerful, and, I'm guessing, not from Earth."

"Lunch!" A chirrup and a flash of pink was Tony's only warning before a warm bowl was pressed into his hands. He couldn't help the flinch or the wave of sudden terror that stole over him, and as he jerked violently away the bowl tumbled through his grip and clattered against the ground.

"Kitty!"

"I'm sorry!" Kitty cried, sounding truly apologetic this time. She bent down and began scooping the spilled noodles and cheese back into the bowl while Tony stared down at her through wide eyes, his heart hammering against his ribs and his breaths coming in great heaves. "I'm really sorry, I didn't mean to scare you. Are you okay?" The girl sat back on her heels to glance up at the panicking Tony with eyes bright with worry and guilt.

"I'm fine," Tony gasped out, willing his limbs to stop trembling.

Kitty opened her mouth, but Storm's hand on her shoulder stopped whatever she was about to say.

"Why don't you get rid of that spoiled food and fetch him another bowl. Carefully this time."

The teenager nodded and hurried to do as Storm had suggested, casting one last apologetic look over her shoulder and mouthing another 'sorry' as she went.

As Tony caught his breath and calmed himself down he turned back to Storm, still the very picture of peace and serenity as she patiently waited for him to work himself back to normal. "I-"

"You do not need to apologize, or explain," she said. "Just rest a minute, and we can continue once Kitty returns with a new bowl and you have eaten."

Eventually Kitty did return, faster this time, and careful to call out her approach before handing the bowl over with slowly, and then took a seat next to Storm. For the next few minutes, Tony was pretty well occupied with his food. Neither woman pressed him for any answers while he ate, and he was grateful for that at least, and took his sweet time, chewing every bite thoroughly. He missed real food.

Once he had scraped every last noodle and scrap of cheese from his bowl he set it aside and straightened up to face the strange women, signaling clearly that he was ready to continue.

"Why don't you tell me where you have been all this time. Where did the Chitauri take you?"

"A ship," Tony scrubbed at his face and tried to collect the details of the past year into something sensible. "A very, very big ship of some sort. I think it's called the Sanctuary. That's what Corvis called it anyways... They weren't exactly big on sharing information with me. Except their torture techniques, they were pretty free with sharing the details of those."

"You were there the entire time?"

"I think so. I don't... remember much. It's all so dark and jumbled..."

"How did you get free?" Kitty asked, leaning forward and bouncing her knees slightly.

"I stole a ship. They brought someone new in, some sort of.. telepath... and she was messing with my mind." From the corner of his eye, he saw the two exchange a quick glance.

"What did this telepath do in your mind?" Storm asked, as if telepaths were just an everyday sort of thing people ran in to. With what he had seen of these two so far though, maybe that wasn't so far fetched.

"Looking for something? Torturing me? Who knows any more. They left, to give me a break, and I managed to wiggle loose and escape to the ship bay. I made it down to Earth and then... you know more than me after that I think." A huge yawn took over as Tony's brief story wound to a close, and suddenly he was fighting to keep his eyes open.

"That is plenty for now I think," Storm said, standing to gather Tony's bowl and fork. "Get some more sleep. You are safe here. When you wake up again, we can finish our introductions and talk about what to do next."

Tony leaned back and slipped his legs under the sheets again, letting out a long sigh as he rested his head on the pillow and let Storm's voice lull him back to sleep.

**End**

**Chapter 5 Preview:**  "... _The abandoned campsite was right where the stranger, Hawkeye, had promised. To the soldier's annoyance, there was even a bed roll layed out next to a set of tin dishes and a large metal pot. Pinned down under the pot was a hand written note with instructions on how to boil water for sanitation and for making coffee. The note was quickly crumpled up and thrown into the stream_..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Shows up five months late with Starbucks* ...S'up?
> 
> Seriously though, sorry for the surprise hiatus. Some stuff came up irl, including some of my usual fall depressions, and I just... lost the spirit for a while. I've been drawing every day, though. And that's been fun. Even made some art for the Astroverse on my Tumblr. Anyways, whatever funk possessed me seems to have finally passed, and I'm back to the keyboard. It may take a bit to get back into the full swing of things, but at least I can make words again. The next chapter of Luciferous shouldn't be long. It's written, just needs a few passes for editing, and I need to get far enough into ch 16 to have a preview.
> 
> -OMaM


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